I consider a daily dose of journey dreaming may be good for the soul. Stow away with me to Siena, Italy, on this excerpt from my ebook For the Love of Europe, a set of 100 of my favourite locations, folks, and tales from a lifetime of European travels.
Stretched throughout a Tuscan hill, Siena presents maybe Italy’s greatest medieval expertise. Courtyards sport flower-decked wells, church buildings modestly share their artwork, and alleys dead-end into red-tiled rooftop panoramas. This is a metropolis made for strolling. With its stony skyline and rustic brick lanes tumbling each which approach, the city is an architectural time warp, the place pedestrians rule and the current feels just like the previous.
Today, the confident Sienese keep in mind their centuries-old accomplishments with satisfaction. In the 1300s, Siena was certainly one of Europe’s largest cities and a significant navy power, in a category with Florence, Venice, and Genoa. But weakened by a disastrous plague and conquered by its Florentine rivals, Siena turned a backwater — and it’s been one ever since. Siena’s loss turned the traveler’s acquire as its political and financial irrelevance preserved its Gothic id.
This is most notable in Il Campo, the place I start my stroll. At the middle of city, this nice shell-shaped piazza, that includes a sloped red-brick flooring fanning out from the City Hall tower, is designed for folks, providing the right invitation to loiter. Il Campo immerses you in a world the place troubadours stroke guitars, lovers stroke each other’s hair, and bellies change into pillows. It will get my vote for the best piazza in all of Europe.
Most Italian cities have a church on their primary sq., however Il Campo gathers Siena’s citizenry round its City Hall with its skyscraping municipal tower. Catching my breath after climbing to the dizzy prime of the 100-yard-tall bell tower, I survey the view and suppose of the assertion this campanile made. In Siena, kings and popes took a again seat to the folks, because it was all about secular authorities, civic society, and humanism.
The public is welcome contained in the City Hall the place, for seven centuries, instructive frescoes have reminded all of the consequences of excellent and unhealthy authorities. One fresco reveals a utopian republic, blissfully at peace; the opposite fresco depicts a metropolis in ruins, overrun by greed and tyranny.
But the Church nonetheless has its place. If Il Campo is the center of Siena, the Duomo is its soul — and my subsequent vacation spot. A couple of blocks off the principle sq., sitting atop Siena’s highest level and visual for miles round, this white- and dark-green-striped cathedral is as ornate as Gothic will get. Inside and out, it’s lavished with statues and mosaics. The stony heads of almost 2,000 years of popes — that’s over 170 to date — ring the inside, peering down from excessive above on all those that enter.
Great artwork, together with statues carved by Michelangelo and Bernini, fills the church inside. Nicola Pisano carved the beautiful marble pulpit in 1268. It’s crowded with delicate Gothic storytelling. I rise up shut to check the scenes from the lifetime of Christ and the Last Judgment.
Trying to flee the crowds within the cathedral and on the principle sq., I enterprise away from the town middle. I get misplaced on function in Siena’s intriguing again streets, studded with iron rings for tethering horses and lined with colourful flags. Those flags symbolize the town’s contrade (neighborhoods), whose fierce loyalties are on vivid show twice every summer time throughout the Palio, a wild bareback horse race that turns Il Campo into an exciting and people-packed racetrack.
Wandering additional into the far reaches of the town, I’m tempted by Sienese specialties within the outlets alongside the way in which: gourmand pasta, classic Chianti, boar prosciutto, and the town’s favourite deal with: panforte.
Panforte is Siena’s declare to caloric fame. This wealthy, chewy concoction of nuts, honey, and candied fruits impresses even fruitcake haters. Local bakeries declare their recipe dates again to the thirteenth century. Some even power workers to signal nondisclosure agreements to make sure they received’t reveal the particular spice mix that flavors their model of this beloved — and really dense — cake.
A key to having fun with Siena is to think about it in its 14th-century heyday whereas making the most of at present’s fashionable scene. After chewing on a piece of that panforte, I determine to linger right here into the night, after the tour teams have boarded their buses and left city. I duck right into a bar for aperitivo (glad hour), which features a free buffet and now I’m primed and able to be a part of the passeggiata — a night stroll. I time my arrival again at Il Campo to savor that lovely twilight second when the sky is a wealthy blue dome, no brighter than the proud Siena towers that appear to carry it excessive.